Chapter 2
"Are we running today do you think?" Laura asked from next to me, her one foot up on the bench and she was hunched over, tying her shoe lace.
"Probably." I shrugged, pulling my red gym shirt over my head that had "La Push High" written in white letters above my left breast. The neck line on the shirts that the school gave us were so high, they made me feel like I was going to choke.
"But it's raining." Laura protested, putting her foot back on the ground and pulling up her other one.
"Like that matters." I scoffed and pulled my dark brown hair into a high pony tail, leaving my hair to dangle a little above the nape of my neck.
"True." Laura sighed, pulling her own black hair into a pony. Her hair was beautiful; it fell to her mid back, tangle free and looking silky and shiny. "Why do we have to live in the land of constant overcast and never ending rainfall?"
"Because our ancestors thought the land was beautiful." I shrugged as we began our exit of the girl's locker room. "Or simply because our ancestors were born here and they were too lazy to find some place better."
Laura laughed and shoved my shoulder as we entered the sticky gym. For some reason the school decided they weren't going to bother putting air in the gym, they would just open the doors and let Mother Nature cool it down. There was a flaw in their plan of course; the heat of the gym and the constant rain created a sticky humid combination that assaulted my skin and dampened my hair as soon as I set foot on the shiny fake wood floor.
A shrill whistle blew. "Come on ladies!" another blow. "Hustle up!" another. "Let's go!" three more piercing blows on the whistle.
"I know it's mean," Laura whispered next to me as we joined the rest of the herd of girls who were gathering around our gym instructor. "but I really don't like her."
I smirked and patted her shoulder. Leave it to Laura to make hating someone sound so adorable.
Lynch, as I called her because I refused to call her Coach Lynch, was a middle aged woman who sported her dyed blonde hair in a high pony tail and always wore track suits – usually gray with pink trim- and a whistle around her neck. She used to be head cheerleader when she went here as a student and I think she's having a hard time letting go of the glory days; she undeniably favors the cheerleaders and all she ever talks about is how amazing it feels to land flips. I would like to see her try to do a flip now.
"Okay girls, we are going to be merging with Mr. Richard's boys class today for some volleyball." Lynch said while fiddling with her whistle the entire time; she never gave that thing a rest.
Half of the girls groaned and half of them lit up at the mention of the guys. Laura and I joined the groaning side. Paul was in that gym class. It was bad enough that I had to deal with him in the morning and in the middle of the day, but now gym class too?
"Coach Lynch, are you ready?" I heard Mr. Richard yell from the other side of the gym where he was standing with his group of guys who were gawking at us girls like they have never seen us before. What was it about the gym that made everyone so hormonal? We go to school with each other all day but suddenly we are in the gym and no one remembers that. Maybe it was the humidity.
"Yes, come on over." Lynch responded, sticking her whistle into her mouth and breathed out, making it give a little chirp.
We were instructed to get a partner of our same gender and then the teachers would put us with another partner set of the opposite gender which would make up our team.
I found myself holding my breath the entire time teams were being set up, hoping that Laura and I wouldn't be put with Paul and his new friend Jared Cameron. Jared was very tall and muscular, like Paul had become recently, if I didn't know any better I'd say that the two were closely related.
Thankfully we got paired up with two guys who were a bit shorter than Paul and Jared but still a good amount taller than Laura and me, and muscular in a lean sort of way. Their muscles weren't bulging through their shirts, but you could tell that they were there. Since La Push school was so small we already knew their names, Kyle and Dave, both tan and had shaggy black hair, but Kyle was wearing glasses. They were cute.
"We got this." Kyle smiled a big toothy grin and fist bumped his friend. He then turned to look at Laura and me. "Got this." He repeated with his white smile and held his fist out to us.
"We got this." Laura repeated uncertainly, gently bumping his fist.
"All right! Lahote, Cameron, your team over there against that team."
I looked over and saw Mr. Richard – whom I recently decided to call Mr. Dick – pointing at our court.
"We got this." I bumped Kyle's fist and then his friends.
"Yeah, see the fire in her eyes, we got it." Dave laughed happily and trotted over to retrieve a ball from the basket.
I watched as Paul and Jared made their way over to the court across from us with the girls on their team trailing behind them, ogling their muscles quite openly. Have they no shame? But then again, if Paul hadn't kicked me to the curb for no reason, those muscles would be mine and I would get to touch and ogle them all I wanted.
I mentally kicked myself for the second time of the day and looked away.
"We are going to set up like a diamond, Laura you get the back, Kyle and I will get the sides and Rea gets the front, good?" Dave called out as he came back with the ball, twirling it in his hands.
We all agreed and went to our spots and Dave gave Laura the ball to serve.
"Okay, guys, we are going to be doing this for the next few gym classes, we are treating it like a tournament so play your best." Mr. Dick announced from the sidelines where he and Lynch were standing.
Lynch blew her shrill whistle. "Begin!"
I looked in front of me and saw that they were set up the same way we were, diamond shaped. One of the girls was in the back and the other was on one of the sides, Paul was on the other side and Jared was in the front like me.
Laura served the ball and Paul volleyed it to the girl on the other side of him who hit it over to us. Kyle set the ball for me and I jumped up and summoned all of my anger then spiked the ball as hard as I could, sending it like a missile toward the girl on the side who shrieked and jumped out of the way.
I looked up and saw Jared staring at me with huge eyes and a slight smirk playing at his lips. He looked behind him in Paul's direction but I refused to look at him, instead I turned around and saw Dave, Kyle and Laura smiling at me.
"Way to go killer!" Kyle laughed and ran over and picked me up in a spinning hug.
"I told you she had that fire in her eyes." Dave laughed, catching the ball that Jared tossed over the net then gently passing it to Laura to serve again.
Kyle set me down and went back over to his spot and Laura served again.
The game went on for a while the same way, me spiking the ball and then receiving a victory hug from Kyle until finally Paul got the ball and set it for Jared who spiked it between Dave and Kyle, making it difficult to hit back over.
"Finally." I think I heard Paul mutter. He had always been very competitive, but something about the way he said that made it seem like his need to win has gotten worse.
"Good job Laura, good job Rea." Kyle winked at me as we rotated our positions, Kyle now in the front by the net like I had been and I in the space Jared had previously been in charge of.
I felt myself blush slightly and I was very thankful that my skin tone made the blush difficult to see. I hadn't been with anyone after Paul broke up with me, I felt myself compare every guy to him and none of them were ever good enough, they didn't give me goose bumps and butterflies when they looked at me like Paul did.
Kyle was a nice guy and very cute, but sadly I didn't feel anything for him. Although, that didn't mean I wasn't allowed to enjoy the attention from him.
